Spending quality time with children

According to research, children in an average home spend more hours watching television than the total number of hours spent at school or with their parents.

Using a certain home as a case study, researchers discovered that the average total time the children in that home spent in communication with their parents was a shocking 10 minutes daily. The children in that home spend most of their time with the television, social media and friends.

Children tend to grow in the direction they spend more time with. The research goes on to say that, children now get leadership from TV, the Internet or with whoever they spend most of their time with.

It is, therefore, advisable that parents calculate and regulate the number of hours their children spend watching TV, on the Internet, and with friends and associates. Failure by many Nigerian parents to spend time to parent their children has resulted in the television, social media and bandits recruiting and providing leadership for their children.

It is very unfortunate that the baton of leadership in most homes has been passed on to Tom and Jerry, false celebrities and bandits. God did not create the family to be led this way. He made the family dependent on human relationships.

Parents should control what their children watch and the time they spend watching it or else, their children will grow farther from them and closer to things that will not benefit them.

As forms of relaxation and entertainment, plan family-oriented games and select proper television programmes that will aid adequate leadership and in turn, cause family bonding.

Adults should be an example by regulating the time they spend on TV and their computers. They should, in turn, regulate that of members of their households.

Parents should, therefore, focus on spending more time with their children and thereby providing them with good values and morally sound leadership.

One of the most important requirements of parents is to mould their children’s conscience. No child can grow into having a proper conscience, if Tom and Jerry, the social media and bandits are those they spend more time with.

Every child should be taught the difference between what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. There is no way Tom and Jerry and other cartoon figures are going to teach your children to have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. Tom and Jerry teach children how to play pranks, not values.

When the Bible tells parents to “Train up a child in the way he should go…” it is a leadership responsibility given to parents and not to friends and bandits and cartoon characters. Provide leadership for them and teach them daily, the consequences of doing evil and the benefits of doing good.

Some months ago, a young boy who was arrested for armed robbery told the press and the police that he was not brought up to have a sense of what is wrong and what is right because his parents, especially his father, did not spend time with him to teach him what is good and what is bad. He, therefore, grew up under the leadership of television, friends and finally under the leadership of an armed robbery gang and bandits. That is what lack of parental leadership does. Love you.